With the increased demands and awareness from the general public for healthcare professionals to be accountable for their actions, good infection control is crucial in nursing practices. To achieve higher standards of clinical practice, safe practices to minimize the risk of cross-infection have become the uppermost in the minds of healthcare professionals when caring for patients. Disposable gloves are commonly used as a protective device for the purpose. In the process of escalating dependence for such essential protective device in today's modern health-care industry, thirty-five percent of healthcare workers who wear medical gloves may experience non-allergic skin problems at one time or another (9). The most frequently experienced is irritant contact dermatitis. The characteristics of this non-immune reaction consist of dry, crusty, hard bumps along with horizontal skin cracks. Frequent hand washing, strong surgical scrubbing agents, soaps, detergents, glove powders and the hot moist environment caused by glove wear are all associated with irritant contact dermatitis. Every time we wash our hands we remove the natural oils that are essential for healthy skin. When there is a deficiency of natural oils, the skin tends to dry and loses its resilience and eventually cracks. This skin reaction may be minimized by avoiding as much as possible all of the causative factors in the workplace and home environment. In this case, the use of an emollient like lanolin has been found helpful.
The history of lanolin is both long and fascinating (1,2,3). Lanolin was known to and used by the ancient Greeks as an excellent emollient. Its strength as an active ingredient in skincare application lies in its extensive records of safe use for the purpose. Lanolin is a mixture of esters derived from several fatty acids. With water it readily forms an emulsion. The literatures on skin surface studies have provided objective evidence and confirmed the emollient effect of lanolin and its derivatives (4,5,10). In addition to this, lanolin has demonstrated remarkable chemical and physical similarities in comparison to human skin lipids (6). Its presence will help to condition the skin of the user's hands.
The invention to apply Lanolin onto gloves is further enriched by the addition of Vitamin E into the formulation. Vitamin E is a powerful biological antioxidant (7,8) that serves to prevent disease and premature aging. It has a neutralizing effect on free radicals, a by-product of energy metabolism. Vitamin E is an important antioxidant commonly known for its ability to aid in the healing of previously damaged skin. It also tends to improve skin elasticity and thus promotes a youthful and healthy look to the skin.
The application of the moisturizing and therapeutic ingredients made of emulsified Lanolin and Vitamin E (known as Lano-E composite herein) to the gloves will substantially provide additional hand health care features, in addition to, its basic function as a barrier to control cross contamination, especially in the medical and laboratory procedures.